Alpine Guerilla's grow disasters

[hamstring]

@mountainoutlaw Thank you for your kind words! I was looking for a outdoor community thread before I started this one, but I obviously missed the outdoor grows 2024 thread.

Well, things could go better here. In recent years we have often had unusually long warm and very dry periods in early summer. Not this season, nothing but very rainy weather since almost two months. Cool nights here in the highlands, flooding in the lowlands.

The main spot was always a safe bet, clayey and loamy soil that retains moisture well, the plants have survived longer dry spells here. This season it is a big disadvantage as the plants suffer from waterlogging.
Moisture, fungi, septoria... I removed the dead leaves to prevent the pests from spreading.

View attachment 19021763

Wanna see some underdeveloped and almost half-stripped plants? Here we go!

Cinderella 99 x Lebenese

View attachment 19021762

K2

View attachment 19021761

'Surprise seed' that I found while vacuuming

View attachment 19021758

Pure Cinderella 99, still a dwarf

View attachment 19021757

The two Nanda Devis are doing better, almost no fungi or septoria...

View attachment 19021760

but the bigger one has been visited by snails.

View attachment 19021759

Fortunately, I never rely on just one spot. The soil at the second spot is rather sandy, unsuitable during dry phases, but good in moist conditions. Here, both plants have developed as well as the weather has allowed.

Another K2...

View attachment 19021786

and another Cinderella x Lebanese with beautiful huge leafs.

View attachment 19021785

View attachment 19021788

Hopefully the weather soon gets drier, warmer and sunnier.

Wish you all the best for your grows!

AG

I see a lot of leaf spot. Usually start seeing it my neck of the woods 2nd week of July. Ends in sometime in September. Do you treat it or just roll with the punches?

Good luck to you as I am a 30 plus year guerrilla grower myself.

 

[Alpine Guerilla]

Finally an update after two months.

Sorry for this, I'm just not the 'an update every few days guy' I guess.

Things could be better, but they could also be worse, so I'm not complaining. The plants at the 'leaf septoria spot' have suffered from almost everything, deer, snails, fungus, heavy rains and too much moisture. The K2, the Cinderella 99 and the plant that grew from a seed I found while vacuuming didn't make it. The Nanda Devis proved to be very resistant, both turned out to be males. I removed the weaker one a few days ago, the other Nanda Devi male was heavily attacked by snails, but made his way:

This hardy buddy has the privilege of pollinating the last remaining plant at the spot, namely the Cinderella 99 x Lebanese. She suffered a lot from fungus and leaf septoria, at least she was the first of all remaining plants to start flowering:

The two plants in the spot I gave a chance for the first time are doing much better. Both turned out to be females. The K2 was topped by snails but seems quite unimpressed:

The other Cinderella 99 x Lebanese:

Both have been given some cow manure-based fertilizer, as the leaves were already turning yellow.

What is unusual is how late flowering started this year. I would have expected both Cinderella 99 x Libanese in particular to be faster.

Looking, like a good start! I still haven't planted my girls up in the mountains yet..
Six ErdPurt x PCK.
That's a job for tomorrow!!

Excited to finally start the season after such a wet spring like you said. Going to be a pachamama year for me. But with the regular rains I think i have a shot at a harvest despite the guaranteed neglect they will be getting.

Hope your plants are doing better than mine!

Best outdoor grow environment, I lived in Vallandry for a six month snowboard season. Best time of my life

These Scandinavian [Denmark] seeds are well suited for your outdoor grows! You might want to check out https://cphseeds.com/

Thanks for the link, I'll check them out, never heard of cphseeds before.
Innn

Get yourself some purolyt and spray the plants with that. All my mates in europe who use it haven't got the problem you have.
...the others on the other hand do! It works very well!
Some of my mates even use it indoors this year,because of the high humidity

Thank you, I prefer to grow as naturally as possible, even if it means losing crops.

Love these grows! Good luck with it. I'll be following along.

Thank you and sorry for the late update!

I see a lot of leaf spot. Usually start seeing it my neck of the woods 2nd week of July. Ends in sometime in September. Do you treat it or just roll with the punches?

Good luck to you as I am a 30 plus year guerrilla grower myself.

Hey @hamstring, this spot in particular is no fun this year, but I'm not doing anything about the fungus or leaf septoria. I'll hopefully grow there the (Cinderalla 99 x Lebanese) x Nanda Devi next year. The Nanda Devi male might pass on some of its hardiness, while the Lebanese should add some early fowering traits.

Happy growing everybody!

 

[Alpine Guerilla]

I went on a bike tour to the spot where the Nanda Devi male and the Cinderella 99 x Lebanese female are located, I was curious to see when the Nanda Devi would be ready to release its pollen. Not yet, but close and quite impressive for a wild-type like variety.

The Cinderella 99 x Lebanese is ready to get pollinated and starts producing resin.

The wild blackberries start to ripe.

Happy growing everybody!

 

[Alpine Guerilla]

It's time to bring the report to an end... things didn't go particularly well, to put it mildly.

The plants generally started flowering very late this year, and after an onset of winter at the end of September with snow, sleet and light frost, mold and leaf septoria finally took over. At my first location, which is susceptible to leaf septoria even under good conditions, the Cinderella 99 x Lebanese, the K2, the pure Cinderella 99 and the surprise plant rotted completely. I had high hopes for the Nanda Devi male which was extremely resistant to pests, he started to release pollen at the beginning of September. But then ripening stopped, here's a photo from last week:

Nope, Nanda Devi is not suitable for the climate conditions here. I checked the rotten buds of the females around, but I didn't find a single seed.

I had at least some success at the other location. I harvested the K2 last weekend, but lost more than half of the buds to mold.

The Cinderella 99 x Lebanese should have flowered much earlier, I also lost most of its buds to mold.

I only set aside a few nice buds of both to cure, the rest I process into rosin (bottle tech with 90 microns bags).

I'm sure that the harvest would have been much better in an average year, the strains are not to blame for the poor result. The weather was simply too cold and too wet too often.

Sorry for the few updates, I was busy as hell this season. Next year I will show my disasters to you in the OUTDOOR GROWS thread.

Happy growing everybody!

 

[Maria Sanchez]

Guerilla growing is hard work.
Appreciate all the effort you've put into this.
My conditions are completely different to yours,
but the guerilla aspect still makes it a challenge.
Hope you have enough in your jars to make it through to next autumn.

 

[Alpine Guerilla]

Hello @Maria Sanchez , thank you for the kind words!

I'm a microdoser, this year's crop will last me until next season.
I have currently an indoor reproduction of Ciskei / Tropical Seeds Company running. Ciskei was originally adapted to the alpine climate by the former Swiss breeder Herbaria, I have high hopes that these will do better in the next guerrilla season than this year's plants.

I've discovered your guerilla thread, so be prepared for me to be lurking around there.